Study of the Confessions, Study 3: Confessions and Doctrines

Several years ago, a radio talk show host conducted a survey of the religious beliefs of Americans by randomly interviewing passers-by on the streets. He first asked them this question, “Do you believe in God?” To his surprise, over 90% of the respondents affirmed that they believed in God. But the bigger surprise came when he asked them the second question, “What is God like?” Then he realized that while these people all “confessed a faith in God,” they did not all “believe the same things about God.” They all believe it is right to think there is a God, they do not all have the right thinking about God. For the simple reason of their diverse understandings of what God is like, we would not expect them to be worshipping under one roof or to belong to the same church or even the same religion.

Confessions and Doctrines: How Are They Related?

“Confession of faith in God” is an ambiguous and elusive concept until and unless we unpack its meaning and filter this confession of faith through doctrine.

Doctrine is simply stating what the Bible teaches about God, what he is like, his words and works, and his plans and purposes for the human race. Doctrine originates from the Latin word doctrina, which means the content of what is taught.1 The confessions of the church of Jesus Christ are attempts to articulate accurately the doctrines as taught in the Scriptures.

For this reason, confessing personal faith in Jesus Christ inevitably entails personal allegiance to a body of teachings (doctrines) about Jesus Christ.

The Confessing Church As A Teaching Church

The confessing act of the church frequently, though not always, results in the writing of a confessional document. This confessing act is effectively the articulation of doctrines which the church espouses. The resulting confessional statement then becomes the teaching document and standard of the church.

• The church of Jesus Christ is a teaching church. The Christian church fulfils four key functions: proclaiming the gospel (kerygma), teaching (didache), fellowship (koinonia), and service (diakonia). While teaching is not the only function the church performs, it is one of the four legs on which the stool stands. Jesus Christ himself was a teacher and teaching was one of the key characteristics of his ministry (Matthew 4:23; 9:35). From its birth, the church has been preeminently a teaching community. The church is not only the place where teaching is done but also the place where teachings (doctrines) are born (Acts 2:42).
• The knowledge of Jesus Christ is mediated through the teaching ministry of the church. When the apostles went about teaching and proclaiming the resurrection in Acts 4:1-22, they were not merely imparting a system of ideas and thoughts, they were calling for personal commitment to the proclaimed truth and personal obedience to the proclaimed Christ. Accordingly, the apostolic teaching ministry not only aims at stimulating thinking about Jesus Christ, but also aims at moving the hearers to the point of believing thinking. Doctrine, therefore, is not just a thinking exercise about the Faith, but it is obedient and believing thinking about Jesus Christ. Without believing thinking, there can be no authentic personal relationship with Jesus Christ and there can be no genuine confession of faith in Christ.
• The church is charged to impart and preserve sound doctrine. The New Testament definition of “sound doctrine” is doctrine that is in keeping with that of the apostles (1 Timothy 1:10; 6:3; 2 Timothy 1:13; 4:3; Titus 1:9-10; 2:1). In fulfilling its charge to preserve sound doctrine, the church must do two things. First, it must hold firmly to sound doctrine (Titus 1:9) by insistently confessing and promulgating sound doctrine. Second, it must refute false doctrine (Titus 1:9) not only by declaration but also by discipline (Titus 1:10-11).

Why is Doctrine Necessary?

Given the charge to preserve sound doctrine, the church by necessity must seek out and state its doctrines (this constitutes the confessing act) through careful study of the whole canon of Scripture. Doctrine serves several purposes:

• Didactic purpose: to properly instruct the members and would-be members of Christ’s community.
• Polemic purpose: to combat and refute heresies.2
• Systematic purpose: to systematize teachings of the whole canon of Scripture.
• Identification purpose: to provide a banner under which professing Christians can march, much like the standard under which the Roman army marched.
• Disciplinary purpose: true doctrine has a claim to obedience. Unless our doctrinal truth is unified, we cannot lay any claims on people because “the preaching and teaching activity of the church cannot make a strong claim for the obedience of faith if contradictory doctrines are put forth in the name of the Church. Not only the outward unity, but also the inner unity of the church…that is, the task of finding a way into the hearts and minds of men for the divine revelation, are seriously injured if the Church is not in a position to distinguish between that which is the standard and correct doctrine and that which is not.”3

Faith And Doctrine

“Faith springs from doctrine in so far as doctrine springs from faith.”4 A believer who confesses personal trust in Jesus Christ must be able to move comfortably between “speaking to God as a worshipper” and “speaking about God (making doctrine as a thinker).” Confession of faith is a response of personal obedience; confession of doctrine is a response of accurate understanding (thinking and talking about God the way he intends us to).

Confessions: Timeless or Timebound?

Most literature on the creeds and confessions is very quick to highlight their limited use and limited authority because these confessional documents were written in and for a specific historical context to address specific issues, challenges and opportunities of a particular time and place.5 Indeed, the Nicene Creed, for instance, was written because the church was wrestling with the doctrine of Christ (Christology), specifically the doctrine of his two natures; the Barmen Declaration was written to refute the idolatry of the state.

No one can deny that the confessions have a time-bound quality to them in that while truth will always remain truth, the way we live out the truth may vary because of different historical and cultural contexts. For instance, the Westminster Confession of Faith, originally written in the mid-seventeenth century, was revised in the twentieth century to reflect the cultural shift in the way the church relates to divorce.

However, it is equally important to highlight the fact that behind each time-bound application of truth, there still lies the eternal, timeless truth that lays claim on our personal obedience. Therefore, while the Westminster Confession of Faith was revised to recognize the reality of divorce, it never ceases to acknowledge divorce as a departure from God’s will and it explicitly calls for “sufficient penitence for sin and failure.”6

Conclusion

As the church of Jesus Christ confesses its faith in Christ, it must also simultaneously state what it confesses about Christ (i.e. doctrine). The confessing church is characteristically the teaching church, charged to promulgate and to preserve sound doctrine. The human doctrine of God can only claim to be sound doctrine in so far as the divine revelation in Scripture validates it as accurate. To the extent that the confessions are in doctrinal agreement with Scripture, the confessions are articulations of biblical teachings, and as such, they carry a doctrinal authority that is timeless.

Questions

1. What are the key doctrines that will help us unpack the meaning of “confession of faith in God?” What is the relationship between doctrine and Scripture? To what extent does sound doctrine prove the authenticity of a person’s faith in Jesus Christ?
2. The New Testament church took seriously its charge to preserve sound doctrine, as evidenced in Paul’s pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus. What are some of the ways the modern church can fulfill its charge to preserve sound doctrine? What role does church discipline have in this task of preserving sound doctrine?
3. Since the unity of the church is first and foremost theological unity (Second Helvetic Confession 5.141), the unity of the church is directly proportional to its purity of doctrine. What are some of the ways in which we can restore unity by promoting and preserving sound doctrine?
4. What are the dangers of highlighting the time-bound quality of the confessions without simultaneously highlighting their timeless quality?
5. What does it mean for the church to restore its respect for and obedience to the doctrinal authority of the confessions?

This study first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Mar/Apr 1998).